Thoughts…on love, marriage and honour

So many thoughts crowd the mind that I’m having trouble putting them all down. But I guess there must be catharsis at some point through words and this catharsis has taken far too long to come. So here’s a fair warning. This is going to be a random, perhaps incoherent blogpost. First, about marriage. What is it about that institution that makes it so sacred that everyone and their cousin tries to save it, knowing fully well that those who are actually in it don’t want to be in it any more? Is it social sanction? Or is the attitude that so many others are unhappy in marriages but do nothing about getting out and so why should only these two? Why do we as a society so consciously privilege duty and “being right” over being happy? Why, in the eternal struggle between love and duty, does duty almost always win?

And then there is love. What is it about this emotion that’s so elusive that you spend years, perhaps decades looking for it and never find it? And then one day, when you’ve resigned to destiny and settled into the humdrum of domesticity, to the mundaneness of a loveless marriage, to perhaps to the corporate rat race that all of us run, that it hits you. And you are sucked in. Sucked into a whirlpool of emotions that you can’t quite recognise or handle. And then it is a downward spiral. And before you know it you’re in it. In love. With someone. With life. With something you do. Or perhaps with love itself. And you can’t live without it. Suddenly you realise you can’t live with mundaneness any more. Your 9-5 job, your marriage, your everyday life no longer suffices. That you need more. And perhaps need to lose something critical to gain something even more critical.

Finally there’s honour. There’s this question of what people will say. Of family honour. Of personal reputation. One step out of the line and all this comes into play. Who are these four people who are constantly worried about your life, your love and your activities? Honestly, don’t they have their own lives to live? Why do we constantly try to hold ourselves up to impossible standards set by others?

So many questions that my head feels like it will explode from all the pressure. Why can’t we, as a society just leave others alone to live their lives the way they deem fit? Why?